The revised school curriculum for Kerala's students, which will include the deleted portions of the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), will be introduced in educational institutions after Onam break in September, Kerala's Education Minister V. Sivankutty announced on Saturday.
"When the school reopens after Onam break (September), the new textbooks with the omitted syllabus will be distributed. It is important that students should learn history, economics and science from the right perspective," said Sivankutty.
As part of its "syllabus rationalisation" exercise last year, the NCERT has dropped certain portions from the course including lessons on Gujarat riots, Mughal courts, the Emergency, Cold War, Naxalite movement, among others from its textbooks. The organisation cited "overlapping" and "irrelevant" as reasons for the decision.
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From class 12th history textbooks, the background of Gandhi's assassin Nathuram Godse has been removed, the fact that the then-Union government cracked down on Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) after Gandhi's assassination, and the fact that Gandhi stood for Hindu-Muslim unity and opposed Hindu majoritarianism after Independence have all been removed, reported The Indian Express.
Kerala's Curriculum Committee will bring back deleted portions including references to Jawaharlal Nehru and Mughal, the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, the 2002 Gujarat riots and other removed portions from Science textbooks as well, according to media reports.
Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had earlier strongly condemned the dropping of certain chapters and portions from NCERT textbooks and alleged that "complete saffronisation" of academic books was the objective behind the move.
